"This chapter demonstrates that while the environmental impacts of oil sands activities on indigenous communities are often understood to be recent controversies, they are contemporary manifestations of issues that first emerged during the initial commercial development phase of the oil sands industry from the late-1960s to mid-1980s."

"In the broadest terms, then, our analysis of the literature on northern communities, resource development, and the environment suggests that the tendency of policy makers, and some university-based researchers, to confine discussions of Aboriginal knowledge to ‘traditional’ realms such as wildlife, precludes local engagement with the full range of environmental impacts associated with northern industrial development. Addressing these gaps in knowledge and policy is key to the promotion of socially just and environmentally sustainable forms of development in the North."